Amazon announced on Tuesday that it is lobbying the federal government to pass a bill that would deschedule and tax weed, making it federally legal in states that have already legalized cannabis. The company also said it would continue to support legislation that would expunge marijuana offenses from people who have been previously convicted of cannabis-related crimes.
The move comes after several policy changes at Amazon designed to help the behemoth hire workers who use cannabis. This summer, Amazon announced that it would not test for marijuana as part of its job screening process. The company also began explicitly advertising that it would not test applicants for marijuana use, a move that Bloomberg reported increased the number of job applications for some positions by as much as 400 percent.
The company is officially lobbying for the passage of two pieces of legislation, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act and the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021, which was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year but has not been taken up in the Senate. Earlier this month, the company sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to “support removing cannabis from the Controlled Substance Act. Doing so will open significant new economic opportunities for millions of capable individuals while beginning to restore some of the damage done to highly affected communities.”
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Source: Vice
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